Cold but Happy

What a week. My muscles have really been objecting to all the biking that we have been doing lately, but I am going to be hard-body Ginny when I get back to the States, so yay! We have visited several villages this week, and have really established a good connection with one in particular, Moquegache. We taught some songs in the school there last Wednesday, like "Yo Tengo Un Amigo Que Me Ama," a song that I learned while doing Hispanic VBS last summer. It definitely went over better than my bad translation of "Jesus Loves Me". The bike ride out to this village is only 6 km and pretty flat, so it´s not too bad. The scenery is amazing. Everytime I look around, I think, "Wow, I´m in the Andes Mountains, in South America!" It is an incredible feeling, and I finally feel the distance. One of the teachers in Moquegache invited us to come back for the town meeting which was held today. They gave a Catholic prayer before the meeting started, and I thought, well, at least they are religious. We were invited to speak and we proposed a weekly Bible study to be held in the community center every Saturday. We made sure they knew that we were evangelicos and not Catholics. They seemed open to us coming. Now the real test is whether anyone will show up next Saturday to study.

Everyone is getting ready for the great Lampa celebration, to be held on Monday and Tuesday of next week. All the Lampans feel the need to re-paint their houses this weekend in preparation. Their methods of painting are a little different from ours in the US, though. All they need is a bucket of watery pigment and something, such as a bowl or a rag, to splash it onto the walls with. I would imagine that Jackson Pollack would paint his house like this. It is a messy messy technique, and random bits of pink paint wind up everywhere. Yes, all their houses are pink. It is really a funny thing to watch, and they don´t seem to care that their lovely blue and green doors also get covered in pink paint.

Yesterday we biked out to Tusini Gande (all 9 km) to see if we could set up a time to come back to the school next week, but when we got there, we discovered that none of the teachers were there. All the kids were lined up in formation and clutching wooden guns and flags. The director beat his drum to keep time, and we sat there and watched the kids march all over the field, practicing for the parade that we suppose will take place during the celebration. We decided to leave because we didn´t want to disturb their practicing and as we got on our bikes to head back to Lampa, the director yelled "Otro dia!" at us over his shoulder. We hope we will be able to talk to him Monday or Tuesday at the celebration.

As we were almost back into Lampa today, returning from the Moquegache meeting, Wade stopped to talk to a man on a motorcycle, and Dave and I spotted an evangelical church that we had never seen before. We went over to talk to some men who were...can you guess?...painting the building, and they invited us inside where they were also having some sort of community meeting. Wade came over to join us, and was asked to speak a message from the Bible. He preached a very basic gospel message using John 3:16 in Spanish, while another man translated into Quechua. It was so cool, and they were so excited for us to be there. We are going to attend their service at 9:00 tomorrow morning. We really feel like God established a connection there, and we want to focus on helping that church out.

Tonight we are heading to Juliaca in search of big greasy cheeseburgers, and to get some groceries at El Tigre, the supermarket. I have really been craving some barbeque lately. Too bad you can´t ship barbeque to Peru. The charm of the ever-present soup and rice dishes has worn off, and variety, whatever it may be, is always welcome. The restaurant with the mean lady offers a quarter-chicken with fries, but it costs twice what a regular dinner costs. Every now and then, we suck it up and shell out the whole $1.50 for the chicken, but only when we are really tired of sopa.

It is getting colder. Rick and Kelly Martinez let me and Wade borrow sleeping bags, and that has really helped us at night, but the temperature is still dropping. If anyone who is coming is July is reading this, let me advise you to pack lots of warm clothes and a sleeping bag. 5 or 6 alpaca blankets piled on top of you just doesn´t cut it. Also, some soft tissues will come in handy when your nose runs and you are tired of rubbing it raw with the cheap one-ply toilet paper they sell around here.

Thanks to everyone who is sending care packages. They will be recieved with much joy and gratitude. Also, thank you for your prayers. Keep praying for our studies with señor Mendez and also for the new ministry we have started in Moquegache. The comments you leave are wonderful. Keep em coming!